The year of spider terror came to a quiet end. Having reason to be suspicious, Michael waited till his mother was across the street, berating neighbors for an offense they had not committed, whereupon he went into the attic. That place was forbidden to him, because his mother claimed it harbored hornet’s nests and rats bearing numerous diseases. He found no hornets or rats, but he did find three quart-size mason jars with numerous pinholes in their lids. One was empty. The other two contained dead flies and pill bugs that Mother had provided as larder, a few drops of water, and a variety of spiders that she had somehow gathered and imprisoned, ten in all, clinging to life in ill-spun webs that sagged away from the glass walls. You can’t depend on nature always to supply a spider when you most need one. Michael, Mickey, Mouse, Boything, Little Shit carried the jars downstairs. He took the occupied pair into the backyard and set the prisoners free. They scurried across his hands without biting him. In the kitchen, he washed the jars, dried them with paper towels, and stood them on the counter by the door to the pantry. He went to his room and was soon lost in a book. He heard his mother return home. She slammed the door and cursed the world on her way to the kitchen and the chardonnay. Her sudden silence lasted perhaps two hours, until she’d drunk enough to start softly singing Celtic songs to which she didn’t know all the words. Later, she ordered in dinner from a restaurant on the corner, all his favorite dishes, allowed him to read his book at the table, and did not trouble him with conversation. Such were the limits of her grace and confession. Michael knew even this tacit recognition of the humanity of another was torment for her, and he asked nothing more.
A NAMELESS PLACE
Many of the larger estates in Rancho Santa Fe have names, but this sixteen-thousand-square-foot house on twelve acres currently lacks one. It changed hands a year earlier, and the new owners, having no interest in horses, removed the name from the entrance monument because it made reference to equine pursuits. They have three homes in other states and don’t currently live here, but they are developing plans to extensively rebuild and expand the house, as well as to replace the stables with a museum to display an antique car collection. Meanwhile, they are exploiting the property as a vacation rental, for they have an aversion to holding assets that don’t produce a return.
Even as he was leaving the dead orchard, Michael invaded the computer of a company that represents only luxury homes for vacation bookings by the most qualified renters. He has seldom earned enough in any four-month period to pay for two weeks in this residence, but on this occasion the cost is zero. A family from Boston will arrive here in five days. The property manager and three-person staff that will take care of the lodgers are on holiday but will return in three days to prepare the house.
By then, Nina and John will have rested, and Michael will have found a refuge, preferably out of California, where they can go to ground for a few weeks. In that next place, he will assist mother and son in acquiring new identities. There, too, he’ll be able to think hard about what he wishes to achieve with his strange gift. Together, they can discuss how long and by what arrangement they might remain together, three against the world. He hopes they will want that as much as he does, but it isn’t his place to assume what is best for them.
The property features white ranch fencing that extends from a pair of massive stacked-stone columns flanking a formidable bronze gate. A post beside the driveway offers a call button and intercom, as well as a lighted keypad. There’s no one in the house to answer the call, or shouldn’t be. As John wakes and sits up in the back, Michael powers down the driver’s window and enters the guest code that’s been assigned to the family that will be in residence here for two weeks. The halves of the ornate gate swing slowly inward.
The boy says, “Does a king live here?”
“A tech king owns it. He developed microchips that processed data five times faster than those that existed before him.”
“Crazy. Imagine if they were ten times faster.”
“He’d own the world,” Michael says.
The long driveway is overhung by colonnades of live oaks. Low mushroom lamps pour pools of light onto the cobbled pavement, which ends in a large moon-washed motor court.
The two-story house is somewhat reminiscent of the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, with a low-pitched roof, broad overhanging eaves, and linear masonry. Michael parks near the front steps.
He retrieves the AR-15 and the two spare magazines he hasn’t used. The boy brings the duffel bag, and when they climb the steps, Nina plays the beam of her Tac Light over the terrace-like front porch.
All the windows are dark, and no voice calls out to demand they explain their presence. Crickets and various night birds perform their timeless chorales.
The security package hasn’t been modernized; no electronic lock exists for Michael to release. He uses the buttstock of the AR-15 to smash one of the panes in the door. Evidently, glass-break detection isn’t part of the system, for no alarm sounds. He reaches inside, feels for the deadbolt, finds the thumb turn, and disengages the lock.
When he opens the door, the alarm begins to beep, counting down a grace period during which he can enter a disarming code. The one he has is that of the property manager, which earlier he fished from the security company’s files. The beeping stops.
Nina turns on lights, revealing limestone floors. Dark wood walls with a glossy piano finish. A Persian rug in jewel tones. They move through the main rooms, which feature more of the same, the Wrightian furniture stands on rugs worth perhaps a couple hundred thousand each.
“I could live here,” John says.
His mother advises, “We’re just visiting, honey.”
In the kitchen, they find that the two Sub-Zeros are stocked with items apparently ordered by the guests who will be forthcoming. John is especially taken with a freezer compartment full of premium gelatos.
Michael steps into the garage and switches on the lights. He finds six stalls and two vehicles, a Lincoln Continental and a Range Rover. The time has come to abandon the Bentley somewhere it won’t be found for a while, before their luck runs out. If they take the Range Rover and get out of here as soon as early the day after tomorrow, they will have two days before the property manager and the house staff return. By then they can be in another state and find new wheels as well as a longer-term refuge than this one.
When Michael returns to the kitchen, Nina has found bowls and spoons, which she is setting on the kitchen island, at which John is already perched on a stool. “We’re flat-out starving,” she declares. “Cherry-chocolate-almond gelato is the agreed-upon first course.”
Putting the AR-15 on a counter and opening the pantry door to search for trash bags, Michael says, “Count me in. I’m just going out to get the cash from the hidden compartment in the Bentley. We’ll ditch the car tomorrow.” He finds a box of eighteen-gallon bags and withdraws one. “Be right back.”
WHO RIDES AT NIGHT, WHO RIDES SO LATE?
Aware that he’s losing his edge to weariness, Calaphas would like to stop somewhere for a large coffee, as black as it comes. However, the blinking signifier indicates he’s less than fifteen minutes from the Bentley, ten if he puts the pedal down harder and relies on his training in high-speed pursuit.